NEW DELHI: Four years after the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill got parliamentary and presidential assent, its rules were notified recently, paving the way for grant of Indian citizenship to non-Muslim illegal immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. For the BJP and the RSS, the CAA is the unfinished business of partition in 1947, as it gives protection to persecuted minorities from the three neighbouring countries. Coming as it does ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Opposition blames the BJP for polarising the polity for narrow vote bank politics.
The US State Department, too, shared its concern, adding they were closely monitoring its rollout. It drew a sharp retort from the foreign office. Widespread agitations in 2019 after the CAA cleared the Parliament test had seemingly put the genie back in the bottle. People's power had triumphed. Or so it seemed. But the government was simply biding its time. For, it strategically notified the rules just before the general elections.
The Opposition described the CAA as narrowly focused, conservative and a non-secular piece of legislation. It argued that the Constitution does not allow the government to enact a law based on religion, as it infringes on the provisions of Article 14, which assures equality before law. The matter is expected to come up before the Supreme Court soon. Union home minister Amit Shah recently said, “There is no need for minorities or any other person to fear because there is no provision in CAA to take away anyone's citizenship. CAA is only to give rights and citizenship to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Christians and Parsi refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.”
Persecuted minorities
Article 14 states that "the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India." The Supreme Court in its 1974 verdict said that Article 14 gives a guarantee against any arbitrary action of the state. But the government claims that legislative action for a particular classification would not be deemed arbitrary if it is based on an intelligible differentia having a reasonable relation to its objective.
The CAA satisfies that principle, it contends. The law was crafted with the specific purpose of providing Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities who entered India illegally before December 31, 2014 from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The CAA explicitly leaves out Muslims and addresses the needs of migrant minorities from those countries. The assumption is that since Muslims are the majority in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, they did not suffer religious persecution.
Amnesty scheme
The government describes the CAA as a benign piece of legislation that seeks to provide a relaxation, in the nature of an amnesty, to specific communities from specified countries with a clear cut-off date. The Union home ministry's counter affidavit in the Supreme Court in 2020 said, “The CAA is a specific amendment that seeks to tackle a specific problem, i.e., the persecution on the ground of religion in the light of the undisputable theocratic constitutional position in these specified countries, the systematic functioning of these states and the perception of fear that may be prevalent amongst minorities as per the de facto situation in these countries.” “But no government took any legislative measure and merely acknowledged the problem and took some administrative action through executive instructions regarding entry, stay and citizenship issues of these classified communities.”
Biggest beneficiaries
Hindu refugees from Bangladesh who are Matuas comprise 17.4% of the West Bengal population, the second largest after Rajbanshis in the state. The BJP had promised them citizenship through the CAA. They are mainly concentrated in 24 North and South Parganas, and bordering districts such as Cooch Behar, North and South Dinajpur, Malda and Nadia. The Rajbanshis from north Bengal, who include Hindu refugees from Bangladesh, could benefit from CAA. The community comprises 75.2% of the Scheduled Caste population and 37.7% of the total population, according to the 2011 census.
They mainly live in Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduars, North Dinajpur and South Dinajpur. While Matuas hold sway in more than six Lok Sabha seats, the Rajbanshis have influence in seven other constituencies. That is the game-changer role the BJP hopes the CAA could play in West Bengal. Elsewhere, around 180 such refugee families live in the Majnu Ka Tila area of Delhi. In Rajasthan, around 17,574 non-Muslims from Pakistan are staying on long-term visas. There are nearly 42,000 Hindu refugees in 19 districts of Uttar Pradesh, including Pilibhit, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Agra, Bareilly, Lucknow and Gorakhpur, according to surveys conducted for the CAA. As many as 37,004 of them are in Pilibhit alone.
States have no say
States like Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal claim they will not implement the CAA. But they have little say in the matter as the entire process is digital. Besides, both the empowered committee that will decide on the grant of citizenship and the district-level committees that will verify the documents submitted by the applicant, will be controlled by the Centre. Quorum of both the committees will be two, including the chair. At the state level, the committee shall be headed by the director (Census operations) of the state/UT concerned and comprise a subsidiary IB officer not below the rank of deputy secretary, jurisdictional foreigners’ regional registration officer (FRRO), state informatics officer of NIC of the state/UT; and postmaster general of the state/UT. A representative of the office of the principal secretary (home) or additional chief secretary (home) of the state/UT and a representative of the jurisdictional divisional railway manager will be invitees. At the district level, the committee shall be headed by a jurisdictional senior superintendent or superintendent of Post, who shall be the designated officer. It will also comprise the district informatics officer/assistant and a nominee of the Central government. A representative not below rank of naib tehsildar or equivalent from the office of district collector and jurisdictional station master of railways will be invitees to the district committee.
Application process
The complete process for registration for seeking citizenship under the CAA has to be done online. The government has already launched a dedicated portal (indiancitizenshiponline.nic.in). A mobile app (CAA-2019) and a toll-free helpline number will follow soon. Under schedule 1B of the CAA, the home ministry has listed 17 documents that applicants can furnish to prove they entered India on or before 31 December 2014. These include a copy of the visa and immigration stamp at the time of arrival in India; government-issued documents and licenses such as driving license and Aadhaar; any letter issued to the applicant by any court or government with a time stamp; ration card of the applicant; birth certificate of the applicant issued in India; land or tenancy certificate of the applicant; PAN card showing its date of issue; insurance policies, marriage certificate, school leaving certificate, among others.
Proof of nationality
To prove they hail from Bangladesh, Afghanistan or Pakistan, the applicants have to furnish any of the nine documents listed under Schedule 1A of the CAA - a copy of the passport; birth certificate issued by a government authority; identity document of any kind issued by the government; any certificate or license issued by the government; land or tenancy records in their countries of origin; documents establishing their parents or grandparents or great grandparents were citizens of the country; or any other document issued by the government establishing that they had come from the three countries along with the citizenship forms before the competent authority. They can also prove their nationality by furnishing a registration certificate or residential permit issued by India’s Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) or Foreigners Registration Officer (FRO). Making it easier for the immigrants whose nationality documents are either expired or will expire soon, the home ministry said they would be deemed valid irrespective of their validity period.
Declaration and eligibility certificate
Applicants will also have to submit an affidavit along with an eligibility certificate issued by a locally reputed community institution. As part of the declaration, they need to give their current residential address and the last address in their country of origin. Then they would be required to identify themselves as per their religion and specify the date they entered India. This affidavit must be attested by a Judicial Magistrate or an Executive Magistrate or an Oath Commissioner or a Notary Public. For the eligibility certificate, applicants need Indian citizens belonging to locally reputed community institutions, who can identify and confirm them based on their nationality and religion. Citizenship will be granted retrospectively from the date of their entries in India.
Link between CAA and NRC
On the face of it, there is no immediate connection between the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The focus of the NRC is to identify legal Indian residents, which so far has only been enforced in Assam. Union home minister Amit Shah had indicated that the NRC would be rolled out across the country by 2024 to identify unauthorised immigrants. But on a later occasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi clarified that the NRC was not for the whole country.
Out of purview
Most regions of the northeast are exempt from the CAA. The tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram or Tripura are included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution. Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur are exempted from the CAA.
Long road to citizenship for persecuted minorities
08.04.1950: Nehru-Liaquat Agreement signed to protect religious minorities. Pak fails to honour it
30.12.1955: Citizenship Act, 1955 comes into force
1956: Citizenship Rules, 1956, come into force
1985: Assam Accord signed to tackle problems from influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh into Assam
28.2.2004: Government amends Citizenship Rules, 1956, gives powers to two district collectors of Rajasthan and four district collectors of Gujarat to grant citizenship to persecuted Hindu migrants from Pakistan
15.9.2004: Ashok Gehlot, then Congress general secretary, urges implementation of notification on delegation of powers to collectors for speedy grant of citizenship to persecuted Hindu migrants from Pakistan
10.12.2004: Ashok Gehlot requests waiver of all fees for visa extension and grant of citizenship to Hindu migrants from Pakistan
07/08.09.2015: Govt amends Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950 to exempt persecuted minorities from Bangladesh and Pakistan from penal provisions on entry of foreigners
18.07.2016: Passport rules further amended to add Afghanistan to the list of countries from where persecuted minorities would be protected
19.07.2016: Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 introduced in Lok Sabha to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955
11.08.2016: Bill sent to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for vetting
23.12.2016: Centre grants powers to Collectors of 16 districts in seven States for two years to grant citizenship by registration or by naturalisation to applicants belonging to six specified communities from Pak, Bangladesh and Afghanistan
January 2019: JPC presents report to Parliament
7.01.2019: Cabinet accepts JPC recommendations and approves revised Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019
08.01.2019: Lok Sabha passes Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019
May 2019: Bill lapses as Lok Sabha is dissolved
9.12.2019: Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 passed by new Lok Sabha
11.12.2019: Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 passed by Rajya Sabha
12.12.2019: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 gets presidential assent
